An Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) network provides services and capabilities to monitor and report the usage or consumption of a commodity, such as water, electricity, gas, etc. Such systems provide communication between a commodity meter and one or more back office systems to report, bill, and otherwise administer the system for managing the distribution of the commodity. Commodity metering information, as well as other information, is typically transmitted by network communication devices, associated with the meters, to the reporting and billing systems. The combination of the meter and the network communication device constitutes one type of node in a utility network.
In an exemplary implementation, the collection and reporting of commodity metering information may only proceed after the registration of a utility node within the AMI network. When a new node powers on, it must establish communication and register its presence in the AMI network with one or more gateways, or access points, that manage the network of nodes, and maintain connectivity with utility servers. As may be understood, the AMI network may consist of thousands or even millions of nodes. The registration process for nodes in such a network may consume a large portion of the available bandwidth, constraining the flow of traffic within the network.